Analysis of the Different Schools of Thought in the History of Philosophy

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What are the different schools of thought? What authors correspond to each?

There are 13 schools of thought: Plato, Aristotle, Empiricism, Rationalism, Analytic, Continental, Phenomenology, German idealism, Communism, Capitalism, Stoicism, Nietzsche, and Feminism.

How many years were there published texts for each school of thought?

The earliest philosphers were Plato and Aristotle, publishing in 350 BCE and 320 BCE respectively. Texts pertaining to Feminism, Capitalism, and Empiricism have been around the longest.

What is the average sentence length for each school of thought?

Capitalism, Empiricism, and German idealism texts have higher average sentence lengths compared to the other schools of thought. On average, Plato and Nietzsche wrote shorter sentences.

What words appear more frequently in the texts for each school of thought?

As expected, these word clouds align with the beleifs and principles for each school of thought. However, there are some words such as "thing" and "one" that although provide some insight into the school of thought, may hinder one from fully understanding and characterizing the different schools of thought

Word clouds extension - min word length = 5 & removing thing

Upon the increasing minimum word length and adding more stopwords, these word clouds better represent the beliefs and principles of each school of thought.

Stoicism encourages individuals to hone their virtues of character and either maximize positive emotions or reduce negative emotions so the most frequently appearing words -nature, thyself, either make sense.

Nietzsche believed that there aren't rules for human life so theso the most frequently appearing words -spirit, world, great, instinct are fitting. The frequency of "zarathrustra" was also interesting but upon further research it was found that Nietzsche wrote a text titled "Thus Spake Zarathrustra".

The most frequently appearing words for Communism are labour, capital, and value which is fitting since Communism is centered around creating a classless society where major means of production are controlled by the public.

Capitalism is characterized by private ownership, competition, and freedom of choice so the so the most frequently appearing words -money, price, value, labour are appropriate.

The most frequently appearing words for Feminism -woman, women, mother, are suitable since feminism is the belief in full social, economic, and political equality for all women.

Empiricism is a view that origin of all knowledge is sense experience so it makes sense that the most frequently appearing words are reason, object, and ideas.

Rationalism regards reason as the main source and test of knowledge so the most frequently appearing words -nature, reason, cause, are suitable.

Phenomenology describes the structures of experience and consciousness so it is appropriate that the most frequently appearing words are world, sense, and consciousness.

Continental philosophy has themes of history and politics and is characterized by self-consciousness, freedom, desire so it was interesting to see that the most frequently appearing words are madness, language, and difference.

Plato was a student of Socrates and most famous philosophy was the idea of materialism so it is fitting that the most frequently appearing words are socarates, think, and something.

German idealists beleived that nothing exists without the mind so the most commonly appearing words -concept, object, and reason make sense.

Aristotle's philosophy stresses biology and he beleived that the world was substances and species so it is appropriate that the most commonly appearing words are animal and nature.

Analytic philosophy is characterized by the study of language and logical analysis of concepts so it is fitting that the most frequently appearing words are sense, sentence, and world.

Conclusion

Each school of thought is characterized by its own principles and beliefs and word clouds were a good visual representation of this. However, there is overlap in the vocabularly used in each school of thought. This makes sense as some schools of thought have similar beliefs and others often reference other philosophies to make comparisons and contrasts.